While ‘You Can’t Take It With You,’ You Can’t Afford to Miss It!

If you are looking for something that will leave you genuinely happy, the Clarence Brown Theatre has you covered. You Can’t Take It With You, written by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman and directed by Melissa Rain Anderson, opened last week and runs through May 3rd. It is the final production of CBT’s 2025-2026 season, and based on the energy surrounding it, they are closing out the year on a high note.

My love of theater has grown over the years watching my daughters perform in dance, choir, and theater over the years, not to mention my one singular stint in improv at age 10 and obsession with old musicals and plays I could watch on VHS tapes that we checked out from the library. Seeing the impact of theater on my girls is really what has made me a fan for life. So, when I have the chance to cover something at CBT, I jump at it! I am already planning my trip to see this one, and everything I have learned about this production so far has only made me more eager to get there.

The play centers on the Sycamore family, a gloriously eccentric household that has collectively decided to live exactly as they please, social norms be damned. There is a daughter who writes plays, a father who makes fireworks in the basement, a grandfather who does whatever strikes him as interesting on a given day, and so on. The chaos comes to a head when their daughter Alice falls in love with the buttoned-up son of her very conventional boss, and the two worlds collide in the most delightful way. It is a Tony Award-winning comedy that has been charming audiences for nearly 90 years, and for good reason.

Director Melissa Rain Anderson described working on the production as one of the bright spots in her life in the theater, and that spirit comes through in every aspect of the show. “We have leaned into this material with our full hearts, relishing the language, the spirit, and the joy that this play elicits,” Anderson said in the production’s press release. The cast is a mix of UT Knoxville students, faculty, and longtime company members, including Carol Mayo Jenkins and Jed Diamond, which gives the production a depth and warmth that is hard to manufacture. As CBT’s producing artistic director, Kenneth Martin, said in the press release, it is an all-star cast that showcases the diversity and outstanding talent of their company.

Before the show even opened, I had the chance to go behind the scenes with Hana Sherman, CBT’s Grants, Education, and Outreach Manager, who gave us a look at the set in its work-in-progress form, which was a fascinating peek into the process of bringing a production like this to life. Watching it come together piece by piece gives you a whole new appreciation for what you see on stage opening night.

What I found equally interesting was learning what happens to everything after the final curtain. The sets are carefully dismantled, and from there the pieces go in different directions. Some are stored, some materials are recycled, and others are actually sold to other theater productions around the country for use in their own shows. It is a whole world most audiences never think about, and getting that glimpse made the experience of seeing the finished product all the richer. The sets were not the only behind-the-scenes story worth telling, either.

Meeting Shinnerrie Jackson, who plays Penelope Sycamore and is also an Assistant Professor of Theatre at UT, was a highlight of the visit. Her joy and excitement about this show were absolutely contagious, and if the rest of the cast brings that same energy to the stage, audiences are in for a real treat.

Something else that piqued my excitement for this show was a talk by costume designer Lauren T. Roark, who walked us through her design process and the costumes she created with her team for this production. Roark, who heads graduate costume design at UT and has designed for regional theaters across the country, including the Tony Award-winning Utah Shakespeare Festival and Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, has a design process that is fascinating in its own right. She intentionally avoids looking at past productions of a play until after she has already developed her own vision. She reads the script line by line, researches the time period thoroughly, and builds her designs from the ground up. Forgive my low-quality phone capture of one of the costume design slides.

In a published Q&A about the play, Roark described her approach as “dopamine dressing,” layering unexpected prints, colors, and textures that might look mismatched anywhere else but feel completely right within the world of the Sycamore household. The costumes are not just pretty to look at. They are doing real storytelling work. From the moment a character steps onstage, you understand exactly who they are. And because she builds her vision entirely from scratch before looking at how others have approached a production, there are moments when her finished designs end up echoing the original pieces from the show’s earliest productions. To me, that is a testament to her deep understanding of the writing, the time period, and the spirit of what the costumes are meant to communicate.

Her favorite piece in the show, as she shared in that same Q&A, is Alice’s Act II playsuit, inspired by 1930s leisurewear. It appears to be a dress but has built-in trousers, something like a modern skort. Roark described it as historically rooted and surprisingly contemporary, which she noted is a perfect metaphor for the play itself. I have to say, knowing that going in made watching for it in the second act genuinely fun.

There are also a couple of special events tied to this production (and all CBT productions) worth knowing about. On Sunday, April 26th, CBT will host a Talk Back immediately following the matinee, giving audiences a chance to hear directly from members of the cast, crew, and artistic team. It is free and open to the public and a wonderful way to go a little deeper into the show. And on April 28th, CBT is offering an ASL Night at the Theatre, making the experience fully accessible to Deaf patrons with interpreters for the show, in the box office, at concessions, and throughout the lobby. That performance begins at 6:30 p.m.

You Can’t Take It With You runs approximately two hours and is the kind of show you leave smiling. Tickets are available at clarencebrowntheatre.com or by calling the CBT Box Office at (865) 974-5161. And if this has you thinking about what is coming next, stay tuned for a comprehensive look at the 2026-2027 theater season for the Knoxville community, coming soon!